aliaga oscar knowledge management 2000 finalp

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Chapter 7

Knowledge Managementand Strategic PlanningOscar A. Aliaga

The Problem and the Solution. Managing knowledge has become a criticalaspect of business organizations, and managers are beginning to recognizethe importance of its role as a fundamental element in strategic planningNevertheless, there is not yet a clear understanding of what managing knowl-edge is This chapter develops and defines the concept of knowledge manage-ment within the context of strategic planning

Knowledge management and the effective use of the knowl-edge of the organization have become increasingly importantfor managers and organizations. Knowledge management encompassesthe knowledge at the individual level-from individual intuition, personalnetworks, and improvisation-and knowledge at the organization level,which is structured, controlled, and measured (Graham & Pizzo, 1996).The final result of knowledge is improved performance, the value it addsto products and services, its impact on the definition of the organization(the &dquo;knowledge organization&dquo;), and its impact on the organizations com-petitiveness. Its economic value at a global level has led to the knowledgeeconomy.

In the knowledge economy, more workers work with information ratherthan things; hence, they are called knowledge workers. It has been esti-mated that the share of American workers whose jobs involve working withthings had fallen from 83 percent in 1900 to 41 percent in 1998, and thatthe number of people who work principally with information will increaseto 59 percent by the year 2000 from 17 percent of the workforce in 1900(Meister, 1998). To some extent this is not surprising given the nationseconomic shift from the resource and productive sector of the economy

2000 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. by Robert Rothschild Espinar on November 7, 2007 http://adh.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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to the knowledge-based service sector. In 1993 in the United States, 73.2percent of the labor force was employed in the service sector, in contrastto 62.6 percent in 1973 (Tabbron & Yang, 1997).

The awareness of knowledge and its impact on the organizationswealth has started a frantic race among organizations in order to controlit, use it, and otherwise make the most of it. Information technologyexperts, engineers, and managers, as well as scholars, are all talking moreabout knowledge and how to manage it, when to manage it, what to man-age, and whom to manage it for. In that journey, knowledge management,human capital, intellectual capital, and intellectual capital managementhave become widely used phrases to reflect that intent and practice.

Fewer companies have adopted knowledge management systems aspart of the overall strategy of the organization, let alone incorporatedhuman resource development (HRD) in a strategic way to managingknowledge. In exploring the issue of what management of knowledge isabout in an organization, we need to look at more fundamental ques-tions : what knowledge is and what it means to manage knowledge.

Knowledge in an Organizational Context

What organizations may do about managing knowledge, and the type ofsystems and processes they will implement to manage knowledge, greatlydepends on how organizations define knowledge.

Knowledge in the OrganizationThere are several definitions of knowledge. From the perspective of cog-nitive theories, for instance, knowledge is described based on a classifica-tion of absolute qualities. Alexander and Judy (quoted by de Jong &Ferguson-Hessler, 1996) distinguish three types of domain-specific knowl-edge : declarative, procedural, and conditional. On the other hand, episte-mological descriptions of knowledge are task dependent, as described byde Jong and Ferguson-Hessler (1996): &dquo;situational knowledge, conceptualknowledge, procedural knowledge, and strategic knowledge&dquo; (p. 106). Thecomplexity in describing knowledge becomes intricate because ourunderstanding of knowledge in the context of an organization may notcorrespond to that of our own daily lives. Demarest (1997) has stated that


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&dquo;knowledge comes to us in many forms, some of which we are not ableto assimilate because of our own assumptions about what knowledge is,and how it is systematized&dquo; (p. 374).

For some, knowledge in an organization is &dquo;invisible&dquo; (Lank, 1997),yet others refer to it as &dquo;a thing (object)&dquo; (Quintas, Lefrere, & Jones,1997). Denning (1998) states that knowledge is &dquo;something that isbelieved, that is true, and that is reliable&dquo; (p. 4). Nonaka, Reinmoeller,and Senoo (1998) define knowledge &dquo;as justified true beliefs and bodilyacquired skills&dquo; (p. 673). Fitchett (1998) defines it as &dquo;the capacity to acton information&dquo; (p. 58).

Whatever definition of knowledge is used, it is its economic valuethat will ultimately drive an organization to improve its performance andto profit from that use.

Intellectual CapitalAnother concept that professionals and scholars use widely when refer-ring to the management of knowledge is that of intellectual capital.However, those concepts are not the same. Bradley (1997) has provideda good definition of what constitutes intellectual capital: any idea orinnovation whose purpose is the generation of ideas that can be trans-formed into revenues. According to this definition, intellectual capital is&dquo;the critical factor that generates value&dquo; (p. 35). Thus, the emphasis isplaced on idea and innovation, two concepts that distinguish intellectualcapital from knowledge.

Similarly, Larry Prusak (quoted in Edvinsson & Sullivan, 1996, p.357) defines intellectual capital as &dquo;intellectual material that has beenformalized, captured, and leveraged (to produce a higher-value asset).&dquo;Edvinsson and Sullivan (1996) themselves define intellectual capital as&dquo;a stock of focused, organized information (knowledge) that the organi-zation can use for some productive purpose&dquo; (p. 357) that is leveraged.

Defining knowledge and intellectual capital becomes importantbecause there is the tendency to assimilate and equate one to each otherand to talk about them interchangeably (see Bontis, 1996; Greco, 1999;and Klein, 1999). The distinction and relationship between those con-cepts, as stated by Wiig (1997a), is that intellectual capital (and intellec-tual capital management) focuses on &dquo;building and governingintellectual assets from strategic and enterprise governance perspectives


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with some focus on tactics.&dquo; Knowledge management, on the other hand,has &dquo;tactical and operational perspectives [focusing on the managementof] knowledge-related activities such as creation, capture, transformationand use&dquo; (p. 400). Based on what an organization believes it is dealingwith, it will develop either a knowledge management or an intellectualcapital management system, or both, but with adequate distinctions andfunctions assigned to each.

Human CapitalHuman capital is an economic concept, as opposed to knowledge man-agement and intellectual capital management, which have their originand application in the managerial sciences.

Economic theory explains human capital and provides the frameworkfor discussing knowledge in an organizational context. According to theeconomic theory of the firm, the traditional factors of production havebeen land, labor, and capital. Human activity within the firm involves twolevels in different factors of production: raw labor and human capital(Friedman, 1990). Raw labor refers to the factor of production labor (thephysical activity for performing a task), and human capital relates to thefactor of production capital (as in the case of financial capital).Economists address this distinction by calling the former &dquo;rivalous goods&dquo;and the latter &dquo;nonrivalous&dquo; (Bradley, 1997; Klenow, 1998).

The distinguishing characteristic of human capital (for example,ideas, training) is that it is intangible. Thus, from an economic perspec-tive, human capital encompasses both knowledge and intellectual capi-tal because both are intended to create revenue for the firm.

Value of Knowledge in OrganizationsThere is still a struggle for a large number of organizations to reflect thevalue of knowledge or intellectual capital using traditional accountingmethodology. It is in fact difficult to reflect what has been called &dquo;hiddenvalues&dquo; in the accounting books. However, there are significant andincreasing examples of how to incorporate the value of knowledge in tra-ditional accounting systems. Managers who value knowledge as a keycomponent within the organization consider knowledge as an asset(Wilkins, van Wegen, & de Hoog, 1997).


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A well-known example of how knowledge adds value to organizationsis that of the Swedish company Skandia. Edvinsson (1997) indicates thatSkandia developed its mission reflecting on two major paradoxes. Thefirst is that major investments in knowledge upgrading and developmentof information technology led to less value in the organization (becauseof the short-term deterioration of profits that reduces the value of the bal-ance sheet and therefore reduces the book value of the organization).But, second, there is a well-defined system for measuring the book value,but not for explaining the difference between the companys higher mar-ket value and the book value, in which case the gap usually consisted ofthe companys intellectual capital.

These traditional accounting system barriers are common.Companies cannot report training and experience on their financialstatements or they cannot report the value of a scientists ability or thereplacement cost of employees skills (Stewart, 1999). The inability toincorporate those assets poses a challenge as companies struggle to valuethe companys worth in the market. It is estimated that the intellectualassets of a corporation are usually worth three or four times the tangiblebook value (Stewart, 1999).

Management literature reports other examples of companies that havestarted to measure the value of knowledge or intellectual capital, amongthem Dow-Chemical, CIBC, Hewlett Packard, and Canon (Roos & Roos,1997). In a survey of 1,626 managers of major U.S. companies(Management Review, 1999), 60 percent of those managers who haveeffective knowledge management programs agreed that intangible assetsare reflected, fully or in part, in the companys market value or stock price.

Several ideas have been proposed in the literature about valuing theknowledge of an organization. One is the asset-based approach. Anotherlinks knowledge to its applications and business benefits, using a bal-anced scorecard &dquo;where financial measures are balanced against cus-tomer, process and innovation measures&dquo; (Skyrme & Amidon, 1998, p.20). Roos and Roos (1997) propose a set of indicators used for each intel-lectual capital category that a company develops. That approach takesinto account the flows between those categories and thus allows anunderstanding of the cause of changes-not only the end result that isobtained with the balance sheet approach. A somewhat indirectapproach is the legal perspective. Intangibles are transformed into tan-gibles and therefore subject to valuation by the traditional accounting


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system. Once a company registers knowledge according to law, itbecomes intellectual property. In that sense, knowledge adopts the formof copyrighted material, patents, licenses, and trade secrets (Wilkins etal., 1997).

Knowledge Management in the Organization

What is the commercial knowledge to be managed? The answer to thisquestion depends on the organizations strategic needs with respect toeither knowledge management or intellectual capital management.

In the Management Review (1999) survey, 1,626 managers wereasked to define the knowledge management system at their companies.Most of them chose &dquo;creating work environments for sharing and trans-ferring knowledge among workers&dquo; and &dquo;gathering, organizing and shar-ing the companys information and knowledge assets&dquo; (p. 20). Two otherdefinitions, chosen by fewer managers, were &dquo;managing tangible intel-lectual capital-copyrights, patents, licenses, royalties, etc.&dquo; and &dquo;lever-aging knowledge from all stakeholders to build innovative corporatestrategies&dquo; (p. 20). The first two responses indicate a general understand-ing of knowledge management as described above. The last two responsesindicate that there is still confusion about the definition of both knowl-edge management and intellectual capital.

The Content: What Is to Be ManagedAuthors have dissimilar proposals about the content of knowledge man-agement. Wiig ( 1997a) indicates that knowledge management refers tothe activities to create, capture, transform, and use, and Greco (1999)describes knowledge management as the documentation of &dquo;best prac-tices, success stories, failures, customer information, and the like&dquo; (p. 20).Coombs and Hull (1998) state that knowledge management is the&dquo;shared mental framework of fundamental design concepts&dquo; (p. 242).Greengard (1998) explained that knowledge management attempts toestablish &dquo;human and technological networks capable of harnessing acompanys collective expertise and audience&dquo; (p. 82).

Wiig, de Hoog, and van der Spek (1997) describe some characteristicsthat in an organization &dquo;set knowledge apart from other resources.&dquo; Among


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other attributes, they state that knowledge is intangible, volatile, embodiedin agents with wills, not consumed in a process, and nonrival. Teeces(1998) taxonomies are tacit knowledge, codified knowledge, observableknowledge, nonobservable, positive and negative, autonomous, and sys-tematic. Yet another classification is provided by Clarke (1998): trivialknowledge, base knowledge, and advantaged knowledge.

Demarest (1997) categorizes shared knowledge in four groups: imper-atives, which are those directives that are unchallenged because theyderive from the firms dogma; patterns, described as predictive models thathave &dquo;a certain longevity, durability and level of universality [and that]describe the likely shape of scenes that call for particular kinds of knowl-edge&dquo; (p. 377); rules, which include algorithms and heuristic; and scripts,or prescriptions for performance, which are therefore more than rules.

Principles for Managing KnowledgeSeveral other issues need to be covered in order to make the necessarymanagerial decisions with respect to the system, its purpose, and the ulti-mate goal of the organization. One of those issues concerns the principlesthat will lead the decision-making process as well as the design of theknowledge management system itself.

Davenport (1996) has proposed a set of principles that have beengrouped for discussion in the following categories:

FINANCIAL LEVEL. Knowledge management is expensive (so financialdecisions need to be made).

STRATEGIC PLANNING LEVEL. Effective knowledge management requiresthe involvement of people and technology; knowledge managementrequires knowledge managers; knowledge management benefits morefrom maps than models and is market driven; knowledge manage-ment is intended to improve knowledge work processes; access toknowledge is only the beginning; knowledge management never ends.

ORGANIZATION CULTURE. Knowledge management is highly political;sharing and using knowledge are unnatural acts; knowledge manage-ment requires a knowledge contract.

Similarly, Allees (1997) proposed principles include those statingthat knowledge is messy, is self-organizing, seeks community, travels by


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language, is difficult to pin down, is always changing, is a social process,does not grow forever, and is difficult to impose rules on.

How to Manage Knowledge

Managing knowledge depends on the nature of the business, the type ofknowledge available, the size of the organization, and the technologyused. There are several approaches to develop a knowledge managementsystem. The first focuses on the activities it entails. Quintas et al. (1997)point out that those activities are the disclosure of knowledge, ensuringavailability of knowledge at the precise location, ensuring availability ofknowledge when is needed, facilitating the development of new knowl-edge, supporting the acquisition of external sources, distributing knowl-edge to those performing activities on the basis of that knowledge, andensuring that everyone knows where knowledge is located. Calagan(1997) adds &dquo;embedding knowledge in processes, products, or services;transferring existing knowledge around an organization; and using acces-sible knowledge in decision making.&dquo; Denning (1998) explains thatknowledge management systems have two dimensions: collecting(obtaining and disseminating knowledge) and connecting (establishinglinks between people that know and are to know).

A second approach looks at the function that the knowledge man-agement system has in the organization, therefore becoming &dquo;an explic-itly developed and managed network of imperatives, patterns, rules andscripts, embodied in some aspect of the firm and distributed throughoutthe firm, that creates marketplace performances&dquo; (Demarest, 1997, p.377). Quintas et al. (1997) have stated too that knowledge management&dquo;is the process of continually managing knowledge of all kinds to meetexisting and emerging needs, to identify and exploit existing and acquiredknowledge assets and to develop new opportunities&dquo; (p. 387).

Yet a third approach makes no distinctions and includes all types ofpurposes. For example, Hendriks and Vriens (1999) explain knowledgemanagement at two levels: as knowledge application and knowledge cre-ation. From a different perspective, Wiig et al. (1997) depict two importantaspects of knowledge management: a knowledge management level and aknowledge object level, which are interrelated and act on each other.

A firm that is in the process of implementing a knowledge manage-ment practice, process, or system needs to be aware of several issues as it


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designs an appropriate system. Demarest (1997) describes six areas criti-cal to frame the need for a knowledge management practice: relationshipbetween culture and actions with the value of knowledge; how knowl-edge is created, embodied, disseminated and used in the organization;what strategic and commercial benefits are expected to be gained; theorganizations level of maturity with respect to its knowledge system; whois to be organized for knowledge management; and the role informationtechnology plays in the knowledge management practice.

There are also focus areas that are critical from the systemic andmanagerial perspectives. Wiig (1997b) identifies four of them: top-downmonitoring and facilitation of knowledge-related activities; creation andmaintenance of knowledge infrastructure; renewing, organizing, andtransferring knowledge assets; and leveraging knowledge assets to realizetheir value.

The Strategic Nature of Managing Knowledge:A Role for Human Resource Development

HRD, through both training and organization development, becomes akey partner in the strategic use of knowledge and in the overall strategicplanning process.

Torraco and Swanson have consistently presented the case for thestrategic roles of HRD in organizations (Torraco & Swanson, 1995, 1997;Swanson, 1994, 1999). Within this call, it has been recognized that theoverall primary role of managing knowledge is to &dquo;increase the qualityand quantity of marketplace performance: to enable the firm to sell moreand sell better, to support more and support better, to create and keepmore, better, customers&dquo; (Demarest, 1997, p. 379). What that statementreveals is that knowledge management is a key component of an organi-zations strategy.

Describing the overall strategic role of knowledge management andintellectual capital, Wiig (1997a) proposes a distinction between these twoconcepts and states that the former is meant to support the creativity ofintellectual capital. He deems this as tactical support: &dquo;Knowledge man-agement has tactical and operational perspectives. Knowledge manage-ment is more detailed and focuses on facilitating and managingknowledge-related activities.... Its function is to plan, implement, operate


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and monitor all the knowledge-related activities and programs requiredfor effective intellectual capital management&dquo; (p. 400). In that definitionresides a subordinate conceptualization of knowledge management withrespect to intellectual capital management, but it also recognizes itsstrategic role.

That perception is crucial to relate intellectual capital management,and knowledge management, to the creation and sustainability of corecompetencies as defined by Prahalad and Hamel (1990). The strategicrole of an organizational system to manage knowledge (that is, knowledgemanagement or intellectual capital management) serves to envision thefuture of the organization. The development of that vision and core com-petencies will give the company the required competitive advantage. &dquo;Inorder to sustain competitive advantage firms need to possess resourceswhich are unique and which are difficult for competitors to capturethrough transfer or imitation&dquo; (Jordan & Jones, 1997, p. 392). It is in thedevelopment of the competitive advantage that the role of HRD as a dis-cipline becomes more important.

The implementation of a strategic system for managing knowledge inan organization has many implications for HRD. Some of those implica-tions relate to the strategic area, where HRD has to be aligned with theoverall strategy of the company. That alignment derives from the need forworking in increasingly more self-managed teams that themselves are theresult of managing knowledge and technology advances. These self-man-aged teams are in contrast to what happened in the mass-productioneconomy, which required 20 percent of highly educated people to man-age the remaining 80 percent (Tabbron & Yang, 1997).

Another crucial area for HRD is the need to focus on removing orga-nizational barriers to creativity (Lusch, Harvey, & Speier, 1998), whichmeans facilitating changes in the organizations culture and values. &dquo;Ifthe specialist skills and knowledge of the individuals can be efficientlyaccessed and harnessed, then it is possible to develop a sustainable posi-tion which is extremely difficult for competitors to imitate&dquo; (Jordan &Jones, 1997, p. 393). Mullin (1996) reports the impact that knowledgemanagement has in changing the working culture in organizations andindicates that &dquo;companies generally cant handle the culture changeinvolved&dquo; (p. 56).

In the same manner, HRD intervention is key in leveraging knowl-edge among personnel. This leveraging comes from providing training,


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but also from evaluating the overall organizations needs to deployhuman resource capabilities and knowledge. &dquo;The trick to managingknowledge is developing a staff with the ability to know what informationcreates value&dquo; (Mullin, 1996, p. 56). Technology is an important compo-nent that enables the management of knowledge, but the key players arestill individuals within the organizations.

Therefore, the HRD role is important due to the nature of the disci-pline and its function in managing knowledge to improve performanceand increase value.

Conclusion

In 1991, Ikujiro Nonaka said, &dquo;In an economy where the only certaintyis uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage isknowledge&dquo; (Greco, 1999, p. 19). Beyond that definition, and given thecurrent state of economics and business management, there is the factthat companies increasingly have adopted knowledge management prac-tices of various sorts. Davenport (1996) reports that BuckmanLaboratories spends 3.5 percent of its revenues on knowledge manage-ment and that McKinsey & Co. has long had an objective of spending 10percent of its revenues on developing and managing intellectual capital.

A recent survey reported that 18.5 percent of managers of the com-panies interviewed had a formal knowledge management program inplace (Management Review, 1999). That number reveals that the major-ity of companies have not yet explored one of todays most importantassets: knowledge.

In a fast-moving economy, managing knowledge becomes a keystrategic element, and HRD professionals have an opportunity to supportthe strategic positioning of firms.

References

Allee, V (1997, November) Twelve principles of knowledge management. Training andDevelopment, 51(11), 71-74Bontis, N (1996) Theres a price on your head: Managing intellectual capital strategi-cally Business Quarterly, 60(4), 40-46.


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Bradley, K. (1997) Intellectual capital and the new wealth of nations II Business StrategyReview, 8(4), 33-44.

Calagan, P. A. (1997, December). Smart companies Training and Development, 51(12),20-24.

Clarke, P. (1998). Implementing a knowledge strategy for your firm. Research TechnologyManagement, 41(2), 28-31.

Coombs, R., & Hull, R. (1998). "Knowledge management practices" and path-depen-dency in innovation. Research Policy, 27, 237-253.

Davenport, T. H. (1996). Some principles of knowledge management. Strategy andBusiness. Available at: http://www.strategy-business.com/strategy/96105/.De Jong, T., & Ferguson-Hessler M. G. M. (1996). Types and qualities of knowledge.Educational Psychologist, 31 (2), 105-113.

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Edvinsson, L. (1997). Developing intellectual capital at Skandia. Long Range Planning,30, 366-373.

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Friedman, D. D. (1990). Price theory: An intermediate text (2nd ed.). Cincinnati, OH:South-Western Publishing.Graham, A. B., & Pizzo, V. G. (1996). A question of balance: Case studies in strategicknowledge management. European Management Journal, 14, 338-346.

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Klein, M. (1999, March 29). Managing knowledge drives key decisions. NationalUnderwriter, 103(13), 17, 19.Klenow, P. J. (1998). Ideas versus rival human capital: Industry evidence on growth mod-els. Journal of Monetary Economics, 42, 3-23.

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Nonaka, I., Reinmoeller, P., & Senoo, D. (1998). The "ART" of knowledge: Systems tocapitalize on market knowledge. European Management Journal, 16, 673-684.

Prahalad, C K , & Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the corporation. HarvardBusiness Review, 68(3), 79-91.

Quintas, P., Lefrere, P, & Jones, G. (1997). Knowledge management: A strategic agenda.Long Range Planning, 30, 385-391

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Stewart, T. A (1999). Intellectual capital. The new wealth of organizations. New YorkCurrency DoubledaySwanson, R. A (1994). Analysis for improving performance. San Francisco. Berrett-Koehler.

Swanson, R. A. (1999, October 6). Strategic roles of human resource development in thenew millennium. Keynote presentation for the launch of the South Afncan Academy ofHuman Resource Development, Johannesburg, South Africa.

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The Authors

Oscar A. Aliaga, a Peruvian attorney, has worked extensively in researchon conflict management and organization development at the Conflictand Change Center, University of Minnesota. His areas of interestinclude human capital theory, knowledge management, training anddiversity, strategic human resource development (HRD), and foreigninvestment and HRD. He is a research associate and adjunct facultymember at the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. candidate in HRD.

Louise Harris is the manager of organizational effectiveness at DeluxeCorporation, where she is responsible for executive leadership develop-ment, succession planning, and organizational capital efforts. Harris isalso a Ph.D. student in HRD at the University of Minnesota, where herfocus is on intellectual capital, knowledge management, and systemsthinking.

Richard W. Herling is the principal training consultant and trainingbusiness unit manager for Metsys Engineering, a consulting group thatdevelops customized training programs and materials focused on devel-oping worker expertise and improving performance. Herling is also a doc-toral student in the University of Minnesotas human resourcedevelopment program, where the focus of his research has been on thedevelopment of organizational expertise.

Richard A. Krohn is director of workforce development for theMinnesota chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America.Prior to this, he worked for an international general contractor in a num-ber of different management roles, including corporate safety directorand technical training manager. Krohn is also a doctoral student in theUniversity of Minnesotas Human Resource Development program.

Joanne Provo leads a practice area at Personnel Decisions Internationalthat focuses on human capital strategy and measurement. Her researchinterests are human capital strategy and demonstrating the impact that


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HRD investments have on value creation for organizations. Provoreceived her Ph.D. degree in human resource development from theUniversity of Minnesota.

Richard J. Torraco is assistant professor of human resource developmentin the Department of Educational Administration at the University ofNebraska-Lincoln. Torraco also coordinates the HRD graduate programat the University of Nebraska. His research activities include theory build-ing in HRD, HRD and performance improvement, and the changingnature of work and careers.


aliaga oscar knowledge management 2000 finalp

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